I've had a full and varied life. From working on a whale research ship in the Pacific to working as a masseur and as a university teacher. Spent much of the last 10 years in India studying yoga and building businesses. Now writing books and building a life with my honey.

I just shifted my home from India to San Francisco. My partner needs some time each week (1 or 2 days) with her son (likely a Wednesday and Thursday) and I am keen to reach out and build new friendships in the Bay area and San Francisco. We can host on occasion - likely better options from Monday to Wednesday.

My mentor:
http://www.josephplan.org/page/page/3350637.htm

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

I surf and occasionally host and I do what I can to make people who visit my place feel at home.
I often work from home so, depending on my work schedule, depends on how available I am; but, yes, we have a nice couch. We love to cook - if you come - always appreciate help with this - buy some fresh vegetables or fruits to contribute etc chop or if you have recipes to share show us what you can do :)

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

Had people couch-surf in my home in India quite a lot. Mostly good. Always appreciate those people who share something of their own.

Interests

I have lived in 20 countries. As a kid I hungered to see it all...the rainforest, the great mountain peaks. That gave way to an appreciation for beauty and simplicity. Now I am drawn to finding the right business to develop. I am also drawn to wordcraft and am feeling out a book on our significance on the planet as conscious individuals. I love the great outdoors and am keen to get into kayaking soon. Camping and trekking and sustainable agriculture inspire me deeply.

• animals
• writing
• books
• folklore
• architecture
• beauty
• dancing
• education
• dining
• cooking
• recipes
• yoga
• running
• massage therapy
• traveling
• music
• cycling
• hiking
• kayaking
• biology
• business
• economics
• teaching
• psychology
• trekking
• healing
• comedy
• long walks
• strategy
• tiny homes
• sustainable agriculture
• art and culture
• the written word
• ingenuinity
• shamanistic traditions
• ramana maharshi
• long term practioner of sexual tantra

Music, Movies, and Books

Music: Very eclectic taste buds
Nick Drake, Passenger, Bon Iver, Dylan,
Beethoven or Mozart
Verdi
Some things by Mahler
Tuvan throat singers
The sound of rain falling..
Paul Simon
Gypsy Kings
"Just another brick in the wall" - Pink Floyd
Bob Dylan, Beetles, Leonard Cohen, Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega
Vedic Chanting and Buddhist Chanting
Enya, Nomad, Loreena McKennitt, Ragas
Indigenous music, Latin American, Didgeridoo

The Power of Myth - a series of interviews with Joseph Campbell by Bill Moyers
The Heart of the Matter - a BBC documentary on Carl Jung's work
The Wisdom of the Dream - documentary on meaning of dreams with Carl Jung
From the Heart of the World - The Elder Brother's Warning - a BBC documentary by Alan Eriera about the Kogi of the Sierra Nevada, Colombia

Favorite Movies:

Tout les Matins du Monde -(All the Mornings of the World) (France)
Ikuru (Living) - (Japan)
Spring Summer Fall Winter Spring (South Korea)
Love Actually - especially the bit where the rock-and-roll character gets the words of the song wrong for the 3rd time :)
The Color of Paradise (Iranian)
Baraka
The Scent of a Woman
The Hunt

"Why are you trying so hard to fit in when you were born to stand out?" - nice line from What a Girl Wants

"One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always runs to simplicity." Bruce Lee

Favorite Books:

The Awakening of Intelligence - Jiddu Krishnamurti
The Future of Mankind - Affluence without Wisdom is Self-destructive - Tara Singh
A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson
The Man who Planted Trees - Jean Giono
A Joseph Campbell Companion - Reflections on the Art of Living - edited by Diane K Osbon
The Tao te Ching
The I Ching
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
A Course in Miracles
West with the Night by Beryl Markham
The Famished Road
The Life of Pi
The Kite Runner
The Count of Monte Cristo
Any decent biography of Abraham Lincoln
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Complete works of Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Complete works of Walt Whitman
The Complete works of John Keats
Religiousness in Yoga by TKV Desikachar
Essays in Idleness - The Tsurezuregusa Of Kenko (Translated by Donald Keene).
The Buddha's Law Among the Birds by Edward Conze (Tr.)
Anything by Idries Shah.
Autobiography of a Yogi by Yogananda
The Multiorgasmic Man by Mantak Chia - honoring...
The last paragraph of The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
The Ecology of Commerce by Paul Hawken
Books by Noam Chomsky on International politics
Abraham Lincoln's collected writings number more than Shakespeare's...I think Lincoln was one of the greatest masters of how to write an English sentence that ever lived.

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." Abe Lin

Henry David Thoreau:

There was an artist in the city of Kouroo who was disposed to strive after perfection. One day it came into his mind to make a staff. Having considered that in an imperfect work time is an ingredient, but into a perfect work time does not enter, he said to himself, It shall be perfect in all respects, though I should do nothing else in my life. He proceeded instantly to the forest for wood, being resolved that it should not be made of unsuitable material; and as he searched for and rejected stick after stick, his friends gradually deserted him, for they grew old in their works and died, but he grew not older by a moment. His singleness of purpose and resolution, and his elevated piety, endowed him, without his knowledge, with perennial youth. As he made no compromise with Time, Time kept out of his way, and only sighed at a distance because he could not overcome him. Before he had found a stock in all respects suitable the city of Kouroo was a hoary ruin, and he sat on one of its mounds to peel the stick. Before he had given it the proper shape the dynasty of the Candahars was at an end, and with the point of the stick he wrote the name of the last of that race in the sand, and then resumed his work. By the time he had smoothed and polished the staff Kalpa was no longer the pole-star; and ere he had put on the ferule and the head adorned with precious stones, Brahma had awoke and slumbered many times. But why do I stay to mention these things? When the finishing stroke was put to his work, it suddenly expanded before the eyes of the astonished artist into the fairest of all the creations of Brahma. He had made a new system in making a staff, a world with full and fair proportions; in which, though the old cities and dynasties had passed away, fairer and more glorious ones had taken their places. And now he saw by the heap of shavings still fresh at his feet, that, for him and his work, the former lapse of time had been an illusion, and that no more time had elapsed than is required for a single scintillation from the brain of Brahma to fall on and inflame the tinder of a mortal brain. The material was pure, and his art was pure; how could the result be other than wonderful?

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

Swam with Dolphins
Seen angels in a vision on a sacred mountain
Traveled the world and met good humble men and women
Questioned the nature and significance of perception
Fallen in love and seen through attachment and aversion (an ongoing journey n'est'ce pas?)

Teach, Learn, Share

Favorite Quotations:

"When we talk about settling the world's problems we're barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It's a mess. It's always been a mess. We're not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives. We can't rid the world of sorrow, but we can choose to live in joy." Joseph Campbell

I do my thing and you do your thing.I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,And you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.If not, it can't be helped.

Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. -J Campbell

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much, If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run,Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
-Kipling

Grow wherever life puts you down -B Okri

There are no problems in life. -Krishnamurti

Life is far too important to take seriously.- Wilde

There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. -L Cohen

Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh. -H D Thoreau

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given him to till.- R W Emerson (Conformity, consistency, and tradition are specifically excluded as enemies of the mind)

There is vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action,and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it,it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is,nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions.It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly,to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channels open...No artist is pleased...There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others. -Martha Graham

Thornton's doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spirit was aroused - the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails to recognize the impossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor for battle. - Jack London

What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an an angel an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! Shakespeare

What I Can Share with Hosts

Cooking, Laughter, Cycling, Rollerblading, Massage, Acroyoga and acrossage (20 years experience), Growing knowledge of the cool haunts and adventures to be had in San Francisco and beyond.

Countries I’ve Visited

Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Iceland, India, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Nepal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan

Countries I’ve Lived In

Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Panama, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, United States

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